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Google Comparison Shopping Services. What is it?
Onefeed is a Google Premium CSS Partner
CSS Partners save clients 20% on every click, if you’re not with a CSS Partner you’re losing 20% of your bid value in every auction which means your competitors have a huge positoning advantage and save money as well.
What is Google Shopping CSS?
Google Shopping Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) is an advertising option for Google Ads advertisers in the EU and Britain. CSS was launched due to the €2.42bn EU anti-trust fine that Google got in June 2017. The remedy to the anti-trust findings was opening up the Google auction to non-Google advertisers and splitting off the CSS division as a stand alone unit. In essence CSS is an opportunity to buy clicks at the wholesale rate.
What are the benefits of working with a CSS?
Working with a CSS like Onefeed brings several immediate benefits that make a big difference to performance and service.
1. CSS clients save the 20% Google management fee in their bids. The image below shows the disdvantage that direct Google advertisers face. In essence if you bid £1 in your ads with a CSS you are seeing the full £1 value in the auction. A non-CSS advertiser will only see 80p in the auction as Google take a 20% management fee. This means CSS brings an immediate advantage to positioning in auctions for no change in bid.
2. Google CSS agencies and providers look after all the feed and errors that come Merchant Centre. It’s the role of the CSS to make sure all best practices are adhered to and maintained. CSS providers have to operate at a high level to maintain their status. Onefeed clients get the benefit of the Onefeed management system to help manage and optimise their product feed.
3. CSS providers get access to beta testing and new features before direct Google Advertisers. Google CSS is a great avenue to get betas before the rest of the market. Premier CSS providers are the first in the queue for new features.
4. CSS providers have dedicated support outside of the traditional Ads support. This means CSS providers are able to get faster answers and resolutions to problems.
5. CSS providers often work in parallel to clients direct in Google. This can be through affiliate channels or additional accounts. This type of operation allows for clients to test differing approaches to Google Ads management.
What are the costs of Google CSS?
All Onefeed clients get the CSS for free as this comes part of the package of client mangement we offer. Not only are we great at managing Ads we also make sure our clients take full advantage of all the tools available to save them money.
What Does That Mean For Our Clients?
When CSS first launched in 2018 Google offered a rebate on PPC spend to test this channel. For some clients this was a massive reduction in PPC costs which also gave a huge advantage over their competitors.
We are always surprised to see stores advertising directly with Google as we know they are paying 20% in hidden fees which is damaging their proftability. Imagine paying 20% more than you had to to get the same click. If you’re not using a CSS you’re missing out. There is no downtime to switching to a CSS and it all works seamlessly.
The only difference that merchants see beyond the ability to lower PPC bids is that under their ads it will show ‘By Onefeed’ under their Shopping listings, as you can see in the example above and to the left
What is the process of moving to a CSS Provider?
Contact a CSS provider
Google have a portal that you can use to find a CSS provider that meets your needs. There are usually country specific specialists that operate in one or a handful of territories. There are also CSS providers that work in every country that CSS operates. These tend to be providers that offer the least support and often have thousands of clients and agencies using their services.
CSS Makes Request to Switch
Once you've agreed to move to a CSS supplier and they are happy to work with you the CSS will make a request to Google to move your account away from Google CSS to the CSS partner. There are a few ways of doing this, but we usually move the Merchant Centre account into our Merchant Centre management account. This has no effect on the Merchant Centre or access to your account. It simply allows the CSS to help manage the Merchant Centre account.
The client will need to accept the transfer as part of the process. A message in Merchant Centre is usually issued and this is the way to accept the move request.
Impressions & Clicks Increase
Depending on the transfer you make it can take from 24 hours to 2 weeks for the transition to happen. Some CSS providers set a different transition period which can slow this process down.
Once a client has moved, especially from Google directly we often see the impressions and clicks increase incrementally. This of course is a by-product of not paying the 20% Google management fee and advertisers getting full value for their bids. The actual noticeable increase is predicated on how aggressive the bids were before moving. It can also take PMax a few days to manage the bids to take into account the 20% saving on PPC fees.